Licensed for Trouble (17 page)

“What—?”

He gaped at her as if she'd just clipped the edge of death. She half expected—okay,
hoped
—that he'd chase that look with sweeping her into his arms.

Instead, he held up his hands and spoke to someone other than her. “Okay. This is
not
working.”

PJ peered past him into the hall. “Who are you talking—?”

“Are you hurt?”

She closed her mouth. And for some reason looked herself over, just in case. “No . . . no, I seem to be in one piece. Are
you
okay? Are
you
hurt?”

In fact, he did appear wounded; she spotted a red mark on his cheek—oh, that could be from her shoe. But the other eye bore a fresh bruise. What, had he taken up fight club? “You
are
hurt.”

“I'm fine. I'm . . .
fine
.” He took a breath, then scrubbed a hand down his face. When he looked back at her, it seemed he'd composed himself, at least enough to talk in coherent sentences, though still without his inside voice. “Where were you tonight?”

She blinked at him. Her mouth opened just a little. “Seriously?”

He said nothing, grinding his jaw so hard he could probably make diamonds.

“Last time I checked, you weren't the boss of—”

His eyebrows arched.

“Okay, you
are
the boss of me. At least some of the time. But I was on official private eye business, tracking down leads for Max.”

His lips remained pinched as if holding in words.

“Fine, I was with Boone. Doing PI work. Did I mention that?”

Visible relief washed over him. Transformed him from Attila the bodyguard to a human being she recognized.

“Jeremy, what is the matter?”

He rebounded fast out of relief and apparently landed straight into anger, his voice clipped. “The matter is your new handyman could be a car thief—or worse, a murderer!”

“Have you been hit on the head?” PJ grabbed a shirt and pulled it over her tank top. She'd have to make do in her Superman pants—it wasn't like he hadn't seen those before. “C'mon, maybe you need some fresh air.”

She walked over to him and touched his arm. She could have been trying to pull the statue of
David
off its marble post for all the good it did.

Especially when he curled his hands around her upper arms. And sighed.

It was the sigh that stopped her, a heavy, burdened release that also uncoiled the knot inside her that had formed from being nearly thrown from her bed in the middle of the night.

She looked at him, and the sudden gentleness, almost worry in his eyes caught her breath. He pressed his forehead to hers. “Don't do that to me again,” he said in a near whisper.

His hands on her arms shot tingles through her, everything inside her suddenly very alive. His breath on her skin, the smell of him seeping into her, the strength that poured off him drawing her in . . . When she touched his chest, she felt his heart hammering beneath the spread of her fingers. “Do what?” she managed, just above a breath.

He closed his eyes. “I am in way over my head here.” Then he sighed again and slowly let her go.

She stood there, her heart banging to be set free, her legs ropy. “Jer—”

He slipped his hand into hers, pulled her into the kitchen, turned on a light. He looked rougher than she'd realized—a raw scrape along his jaw added to his blackened eye, as if he'd banged the front door in with his chin.

Hey . . . “How did you get in?”

He turned to her, an accusing expression on his face. “I would like to say I picked the lock, but you left the back porch unlocked. Anyone could get in here, attack you—”

“In the middle of the night, in my own bed? Yeah,
that
could happen.” She folded her arms, still feeling his grip around them.

He didn't even have the decency to look sheepish. “Where's your phone?”

“In my bag.”

“Where's your bag?”

She thought for a moment. “I think it could be on the terrace outside?” She made a face. “Why?”

He turned, stalking out through the porch, along the side of the house. She followed, the stone glacial on her bare feet. Jeremy retrieved her giant canvas bag, turned, and hooked her by the arm. She stubbed her foot on the stone and cried out.

“Sorry.” He swung her up into his arms.

Okay.

She looped her arm around his neck and studied him for a moment. He seemed truly upset, a steely set to his whiskered jaw, an almost-desperate tinge to his expression. He carried her to the kitchen, set her on the counter, and plopped the bag in her lap. “Find your phone.”

“Bossy.” But she dug through her purse. Located the phone.

Oops. Twelve calls from Jeremy over the past two hours.

She looked at the screen, then at him. “Sorry. But please tell me, what is so urgent?”

“You promise me you'll never scare me again?” His voice still contained a raw, tremulous edge.

“Jeremy, what is going on here? You are completely overreacting. I was fine. So I didn't answer my phone at two o'clock in the morning! I was
asleep
.”

“You could have been laying here, bleeding to death, or with your house on fire, you burning alive.”

“Oh, that's a lovely picture. Between that and the ghosts of Kellogg Manor, are you trying to drive me back to your sofa?

“Maybe.”

What?
Maybe?

She slid off the counter. “How can I possibly understand if you don't tell me anything?”

Jeremy pulled her against him, so close she had no choice but to put her arms around him. He pressed a kiss to her head. “I wish . . . PJ, the fact is, I don't know what to do here. You . . . unhinge me.”

She touched his face. “I don't understand.”

“I know.” He looked down, tracing her cheekbone with his fingers. “You're so beautiful.”

PJ stilled.

“You don't know it. But you are. And sometimes when I see you, all I see is what could happen to you. It wasn't like that at first. I'm not sure when it started . . . maybe after the Dally assignment, when you nearly got killed. Or maybe it just snuck up on me one day at a time. But all of a sudden, I realized that every assignment I give you could hurt or even kill you.”

Oh no. She knew exactly when it had started. Or at least when he'd realized it. “Please tell me that you're not buying into what Boone said. I'm not going to get—”

Jeremy put his hand over her lips. “He was just confirming something I already knew. But don't panic. I'm not going to tell you that you can't be a PI. I know you're going to be a great PI. You have amazing instincts. And even though you're not weapons trained, you do have stellar aim.”

PJ touched his cheek, where a welt was beginning to form. Right along with a hint of a smile.

“The fact is, I don't trust Max.” He reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a couple pages of paper. “I found two articles in the newspaper archives about the night Max showed up here in Kellogg, crimes I think might be related to him.”

He laid the copies on the counter. “This one's a story about a guy busted for car theft and reckless driving. He was picked up just down the road at the Maximilian Bay Bridge right about the time Max was found floating in the water.”

PJ read the article—a quick police report. “Is he still around?”

“I have a last known address. We can check it out tomorrow. In
daylight
.” He flashed her a grin, one she recognized. One that made warmth curl through her. It seemed her Jeremy might be returning. His shoulder rubbed against hers, and his words replayed in her head.
“You're so beautiful. . . .”

“What's this one?”
Woman Killed, House Burned in Apparent Robbery.
It included a grainy black-and-white photo of the victim, Bekka Layton. She looked about twenty-five.

“That's the story about a woman whose house was broken into while she was home. She was shot, the house torched, and the culprit got away. She died of her burns.”

“And you thought of Max's hands.”

Jeremy nodded. “I've got a loose theory. I think Max was in on the robbery, and something went south. It's not uncommon for an arsonist to get caught in his crime—at the very least they hang around, watching. Maybe Max got cold feet or had a bout of conscience and tried to pull her out of the fire. And maybe his accomplice didn't want to risk him going to the cops, so he knocked him out, threw him over the bridge. I think Max might be good for the murder of this woman.”

With every word, the coil around her chest tightened until her breath caught, trapped inside. “No.”

“Why not? Just because he can fix electricity and connect a few pipes doesn't make him a hero.” He met her eyes. “Does it?”

“He's not a murderer.”

“And you know this because . . .”

PJ compressed her lips. “My instincts tell me there's more to Max. His tattoo, for one.”

“Tattoo? You saw his tattoo?”

“Yeah, after he showered—”

“He
showered
here?”

“You're shouting again. For pete's sake, he was crawling around in the mud. What was I going to do?”

“Send him home to his own shower!”

“What if he doesn't have a shower? What if he's homeless?”

“Are you taking in strays now?”

“I have a soft spot for strays.” She tried to manufacture a dark look to equal his. “Being one myself.”

“You're not a stray.” He let his anger slide out in a long breath, then said quietly, “You just haven't quite figured that out yet.”

That took the gust out of her anger. “The tattoo is on his left shoulder. And it's of a phoenix clutching arrows. Jinx—a tattoo artist in Dinkytown—”

“I know Jinx. He did my ink.”

Oh yeah, Jeremy's Celtic symbol on his arm. Another mystery from her cryptic boss.

“Jinx said it's usually worn by soldiers who are former POWs.”

“Which makes sense. Maybe he was a POW who snapped when he got stateside. The stress was too much.”

PJ rubbed her hands on her arms, the chill from outside spilling into the room.

“I really don't want him here unless I'm here.” He folded up the articles, then stuck them in his jacket pocket. “The fact is, it's . . .” His jaw tightened and he swallowed, looking away. “I already lost someone once. Someone I loved very much.”

He'd already lost someone? PJ cupped her hand to his cheek and turned his face to her, ignoring the quiver inside. “Who?”

“My fiancée.”

PJ blinked at him. “Your . . .
fiancée
.” She said the word just to confirm, and it razored through her. His fiancée. No wonder the guy had giant black holes he lost himself inside.

“Her name was Lori. She worked as a drug counselor downtown at a rehab place. One of her clients went berserk and took her hostage . . . and . . .” Jeremy looked beyond her. “I wasn't there. I was in Iraq at the time.”

“It wasn't your fault.”

He flinched at her words. She held in the rest. And she didn't reach out to him because she knew this look—the kind that said,
Please don't, because if you touch me, it'll only get worse
. Indeed, he seemed to be collecting himself. “I really haven't ever . . . Well, I figure it's not an easy thing to find that one person who gets you and understands you and puts up with your issues and . . .” He cleared his throat. “Someone you might want to spend the rest of your life with.”

The rest of his life?

But he wasn't talking about her. She knew that. Knew that the dream had died with Lori. Still, his pain spiraled inside, coiling around her heart. Her eyes burned watching him press his hand hard to his mouth and turn away from her.

After a moment, she touched his back, right between his shoulder blades. Walked around to face him.

He found her eyes then, met them, held them with more than she'd expected. “The thing is, when I'm with you, I forget. I forget about Lori and that dark place that took me. I feel . . .
hope
. Maybe that's the word. I hope again.” He reached up to push her hair back. “Most of all, I want to deserve you. I want to be the kind of guy that buys you a dog and fixes your electricity and keeps you from getting hurt.”

Jeremy caught her red hair between two fingers, ran his fingers down the length of it. “But you send out confusing signals, Princess. Boone, me . . . I am not sure if I'm stealing you—or if you're being stolen from me.”

His hand moved behind her neck, and he seemed to be searching her face as if asking for something.

Yes.

His gaze finally settled on her lips, and she longed to move toward him, to let herself sink into his embrace. But there it went again, the sharp, bullet pain pinging inside as Boone drove away.

No!
She wasn't checking over her shoulder, not really. She just needed a moment to gather her heart, point it again in the right direction. But apparently Jeremy could see the imprint of Boone's memory on her face because before she could answer, he set her away from him.

“I'm not sure whether to fight for you or let you go.”

Fight.
The word pulsed inside her, nearly made it out.

But he shook his head and sighed. “I wish I knew. But the fact is, Princess, there are simply some mysteries that only you can solve.”

* * *

Didn't anyone sleep anymore?

The banging resumed, and then a voice needled into the last veils of sleep. “PJ! Are you in there?”

Nope. She pulled the sleeping bag over her head, pressed the pillow to her ear.

“PJ!” More banging, and then the bark of a dog.